{"id":986,"date":"2006-08-31T09:04:52","date_gmt":"2006-08-31T13:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=986"},"modified":"2006-09-09T16:48:25","modified_gmt":"2006-09-09T20:48:25","slug":"hold-for-future-reference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=986","title":{"rendered":"Hold For Future Reference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ars Technica has an article on Hewlett-Packard defending it’s ink formulations (Link)<\/a> that caught my attention this morning. Of course, you get the “Zomigod! They’re ripping us off” stuff. Even Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson takes that position:<\/p>\n

…most are greatly inferior to the ink sold (for outrageous prices) by the manufacturers…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The part I can’t figure out is: have these people ever had to use a manual typewriter to generate their essays and thesis projects? Do any of them remember just how difficult it was to do things the old-fashioned way? Or is Anderson and the rest: a) under 30 or b) just plain ignorant? I guarantee you I would have paid twice what I do now for a way (including inkjet cartridges) to avoid the horror of trying to type up a full college report on an old typewriter… and do the graphs and charts by hand. I still remember my final aerospace design project. To look at it now is to cringe at the poor quality; the corrections and the poor alignment. Back then it was one of the cleanest reports submitted. But hey, perhaps Mr. Anderson should just do the obvious: Don’t use the technology! There are plenty of old typewriters just sitting around waiting to be used. Knock yourself out!
\n
\nWhere do these people come from? Thankfully, the comments section includes posts by people with half a brain. To the world at large, ink is ink. To some people, it’s much much more. I don’t need to be a chemist to know what I don’t know. All I do<\/em> know is that I’m grateful for the technology and happy to let the market regulate pricing. So what if HP turns a profit? Would we rather all live in a Soviet-style economy?<\/p>\n

So why is this of interest to me? Simple, today we’re talking ink. Tomorrow we’ll be talking 3D printers. Consider this my way of telling people to stfu and lose the anti-capitalist bias. Sure, it can be abused. But it’s also been an amazing catalyst for progress. And if you don’t like the price, then don’t pay it. When the market doesn’t pay, the supplier responds. That’s how it works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ars Technica has an article on Hewlett-Packard defending it’s ink formulations (Link) that caught my attention this morning. Of course, you get the “Zomigod! They’re ripping us off” stuff. Even Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson takes that position: …most are greatly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}